Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-29
NORTH TEXAS DEVELOPMENT.
General Geo It. afford Talks About Hi
Booming Country
ST. Louis Post. Dispatch

St Louis Post Dispatch.
reporter II The Post-Dispatch met
General George F Afford of Dallas, Tex,
st the Lindell hotel yesterday and found
him ready to talk about Texas and its
wonderful development.
The General is native OF New Madrid,
Mo-, but has lived il Texas just fifty
years. He has been legislator, judge,
senator, soldier and banker; out has re-
tired from active business and is now
living. upon the results OF judicious in
vestments in North Texas real estate.
He has travelled extensively for
thirty years through every state
in the Union from Maine to Oregon
and from the great lakes of the north to
the gulf and in Central America, South
America, Mexico, the West India Is
lands and all over Europe from the Med
iterranean to the Baltic, and he declares
with enthusiastic but psrdoning pride that
no country On earth is at all comparable
to North Texas, for its phenomenal
growth in population and wealth,
its fertility of soil, It's
charming climate and the quiet
beauty of its scenery. The elevation
above the sea varies from 1000 to 1000
feet. The never-failing gulf breeze in
reaching this elevation over 100 miles of
undulsting farm and pasture land loses
it humidity, and the result is 3 cool, dry,
delightful atmosphere, full OF ozone Of
rudy health and active Vitality.
THIS SPLENDID COUNTRY
is admirably watered, and its numerous
and extensive valleys are as fertile as any
on the earth, toe alluYial soil being
thirty to sixty feet in depth, while its
plateaus and uplands 2re as rich as any
in Missouri or Illinois, and remind one
very much Of the charming country about
Springfield and Sedalia in Southwest
Missouri; and General Afford feels con-
fident that in very few years the whole
of North Texas Will DE as densely popu-
lated and the lands will sell for as high
price as they now do in the vicinity of
these prosperous Missouri cities.
About 100 miles northwest of Dallas
and Fort Worth are four or five of the
very best COMMITTEES in the state-Archer,
Wichita, Wiloarger, Baylor and Clay
which have heretofore been occupied by
cattle kings with their vast herds, but
lands have become so valuable and
in such demand for actual settlement
that the owners are now willing to
move their herds to cheaper and more
remote regions, and this fertile and
beautiful section will soon be filed
with an industrious and enterprising
population, and there will be & number
Of important towns and at least one city
of great Importance. General Afford
thinks this will be near the center of
Archer county, because Of its geographi-
cal position, about 100 miles west Of
Gainesville, 100 northwest of Dallas and
Fort Worth, and 100 northeast of Abilene,
ct the gate of the greet Panhandle
of Texas, and in the center of
one of the richest mineral sec
tons on the continent, full Of coal,
iron and copper ore. Some Of the latter
was .Gssayed by St. Louis chemists re-
Gently, yielding an average of more than
70 per cent. of metallic copper, while the
clay or COpriferous marlchist surrounding
the ore sssayed % per cent. of metallic
copper. The iron ore which exists in
vast deposits yields from 40 to 50 per
cent. of iron, and en- analysis OF the btu
minous coal found there shows SO per
centresrboD, 40 gas, asa and damp
ness. J.
= GENERAL Afford
argueslEith great force thar if the great
,Heclsa nd Calumet copper mines IN the
Black hills, near Lake Superior, yield a
's6ngio merate which contains less than 3
per cent. of copper, and for which the
miners have to delye $500 feet in the
bowels of the earth, and yet on p2id-up
capital OF less than 1850, 900 has in the
last few years paid more than S26, 100000
Ia cash dividends to its stockholders, why
should not the deposits in Archer county,
Texas, which are practically on the sur
face, be vastly more valuable?
General Afford says number of rail
ways are chartered and are now building
through this immediate section of North
Texas, the Fort Worth and Denver, the
Missouri Pacific west from Henrietta, the
Kansas Southern, the Atchison, Topeks
and Santa Fe, and soon the Gulf,
Colorado and Santa Fe, the Chicago,
Rock Island and Pacific, the Wichita and
Winfield; the Abilene, Wichita Falls and
Kansas City; the Houston and Texas
Central, and the Dallas and Archer Coal
and Iron Railways. 1t cen hardly be
doubted that when these strong lines of
railway form functions, not only one but
several important cities will ct once
spring into existence.
THE VAST MINERAL RESOURCES !
of this section, so near to US, ere IN
known to the business men Of St. Louis,
who are also ignorant of the fact that
North Texas is to-day the best wheat
section on the continent. Yet General
Afford gives US some official statistics
compiled from data obtained from the
Department of Agriculture at Washing
ton, which conclusively establishes this
70 vialR ~ p1Iar1 IYnn hr1sha.eN
per acre in the great wheat stores OF the
Union is as follows:
Nebraska. .........S 6 So Wisconsin ...... Is 40
Iowa .............. 90 MiChigGn........ Is 81
Kansas ........... 3 % Indiana -.-..--- Is -
Illinois. ........... 10 co Oregon--....... ID II
Missouri. u - ohio ..-......... IL l6
Aiinnesota ...... y u TeXas....,...... i -
california l. 80